Being “edgy” only lasts so long before it gets old.
Today’s leftist filmmakers may think they’re being shocking and relevant with the blackwashing trend, in which they cast black actors to depict historical figures who were white or fictional characters who were traditionally established as being white.
But, if anything, they only reveal themselves to be bereft of any originality. For such creators, cultural Marxism is all they have to offer, and it’s a poor substitute for actual artistic achievement.
One of the most prominent examples of the blackwashing craze, the Netlifx Cleopatra “biopic” helmed by Jada Pinkett Smith, stars Adele James, a black woman, as Cleopatra.
There’s no logical reason for this except to perpetuate the historically inaccurate and oft-dispelled trope in which black Americans claim that the peoples of ancient civilizations, most notably Egypt, were actually black.
Not only are Egyptians (ancient and modern) not black, Cleopatra was doubly not so. As has repeatedly been pointed out, she was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty. As such, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. While we can’t say the precise tone of her skin, she was certainly not a black woman of African descent.
The Egyptian fixation among leftist historical revisionists is an example of their ignorance. Just because Egypt is in Africa, they assume the people there were or are black. Contrary to the black and white filter through which they see the world, Africa is a diverse continent with a variety of people. North Africa, for example, has Libya and other nations with non-black populations.
But the leftist propagandists in Hollywood are increasingly not even limiting themselves to Africa. Now, any historical figure is fair game for blackwashing. For example, Netflix recently released Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, in which a black woman plays the titular role of Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III.
This trend of casting black actors to play Europeans and European-descent whites really took off with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s broadway hit Hamilton, which depicts America’s founders as non-white.
The practice of blackwashing is insulting and damaging to both the black and white communities.
For European-descent whites, it’s a way of denying their heritage, saying that their ancestors didn’t really do all of the great things depicted in history. The Left essentially takes possession of their history and says, “This isn’t your history and culture, it belongs to us now.”
Blackwashing also minimizes black culture, making it seem as if blacks don’t have a heritage of their own to be proud of so they must co-opt that of whites. It’s as if they’re saying, “There are no interesting black stories to be told or great historical black figures, so instead we’ll make believe all of these historical whites were actually black.”
Furthermore, blackwashing is harmful to society at large because it normalizes the concept of the malleability of history, the idea that history isn’t objective, but can be changed and revised as those in power see fit.
Eventually, the people are unable to distinguish real history from fiction.
All of this brings to mind a character from the novel Victoria by Thomas Hobbes (a pen name for right-wing scholar and war theorist William S. Lind). The book tells the story of a not-too-distant future in which civil war breaks out in America and traditionalists use the principles of fourth-generation warfare to break free from the Marxist lunacy of the federal government.
One scene in the book describes a long-winded woke speech given by the Honorable Kateesha Mowukuu, the black female secretary of defense, during a White House meeting discussing the war against the right-wing rebels:
“Blacks have been the only true warriors in history. White men can’t fight. It’s because their noses are too small. Courage comes from the nose, not the heart, as the African spiritual healers you call witch doctors have long understood.
… All the great warriors in history have been black. Caesar was a black man, and so was his enemy, Hannibal. The Spartans were black. They just dyed their hair blond, to fool their enemies into thinking they were weak white people. Charlemagne was a black man. In French, charlemagne means ‘kinky hair.’ The Vikings came from Africa, which is where they got those helmets with horns on them. Gunpowder was invented by ancient Zimbabwean scientists, who made it from elephant shit.
… All of America’s military heroes were black people. Washington was a black man. We know that because he came from Washington, D.C., which is a black city. General U.S. Grant had a black grandmother, and so did Robert E. Lee. In fact, it was the same black woman, which is why they looked so much alike. Eisenhower is really a black name, and General George Patton got his pearl-handled revolvers from his black grand-daddy, who took them off Simon Legree.”
… President Warden was torn. His mind told him the Joint Chiefs’ plan made considerably more sense, militarily and otherwise, than that of his Secretary of Defense, but he had long ago conditioned himself to turn off his mind whenever the magic word — racism — was mentioned.
Americans should turn off the TV before their brains collectively erode to that level of woke-induced mush.
